


What Makes a Monster

by Smutophile



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Coming of Age, Dubious Consent, Extremely Underage, Firsts, Gay Chicken, Groping, Horny Teenagers, LGBTQ Themes, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Sexual Experimentation, Trauma, Truth or Dare, Underage Drinking, Voyeurism, autofiction, streaking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29934036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smutophile/pseuds/Smutophile
Summary: So. You want my life’s story, huh? You want to know what went wrong with my life? What turned me into this? How I became the monster I am?Fine, I’ll tell you. The truth, too. I mean sure, I could make up some story to satisfy that condescending narrative in your head. But I think you’ll find the truth far more disturbing. Why? Because the truth is, I’m just a normal guy.So. Here it is, just for you. The truth, in all its salacious detail. Raw, unfiltered, organic honesty. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Nerf Wars

June, 1995

Alright, let’s get this out of the way up front. I didn’t have a sick childhood, didn’t grow up in an abusive family, or trapped in poverty. I was a normal kid. Two parents and a cat living in a single story house in the middle of suburbia. We weren’t rich, and my parents couldn’t afford to buy me all the newest fancy toys advertised on TV, but I was never hungry, and I never had to wear clothes that didn’t fit. I played with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, ran through the sprinklers in the backyard, had lots of coloring books and an impressive sticker collection, watched cartoons every Saturday morning while my parents slept in, knew every song in Aladdin by heart, and couldn’t wait until I was old enough to start kindergarten. 

I was jealous of Brian, who lived down the street. He’s one of the first people I can remember who I thought of as a friend. During the first few years of your life, friends are easy. Anybody your own age is automatically your friend. You might argue about who gets to play with which toys, and you might not even be playing the same game, but you’re still gonna play together. Once your moms are done with their adult conversation though, you go away in separate minivans, and maybe only occasionally remember that you had a playmate.

Your first real friend, however, is that kid you enjoy playing with, who you remember the next day, and who you actively want to visit again. For me - as far as I can remember - that was Brian, who lived in the third house on the left with the blue paint and twin crabapple trees in the front yard.

He was a year older than me, and had already been in school. Plus he had all the cool toys, and got to watch the big kid movies Mom never let me watch, so of course I was jealous of him - that sort of childhood jealousy that’s a tangled mix of envy and admiration. He was the cool older kid who didn’t mind hanging out with me. Whenever I’d go down to his house he’d let me play with his toys, and when he’d come over to my house we’d jump on the trampoline, or have a wrestling match in the sand box. Typical boy stuff.

One day we were hanging out in Brian’s basement, while his mom was upstairs watching a soap opera or something. She was always watching something on TV. I don’t remember her doing anything other than sitting on that couch, watching the TV. As long as we didn’t bother her, we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. Today that meant we were taking turns shooting one of his Nerf guns at the fish tank, trying to see who could land a bullseye on George, the unfortunate goldfish and sole occupant of the tank. 

While I was pulling one of the mini suction cup darts off the glass, it struck me how completely oblivious to our torments he was.

“He doesn’t even flinch!” I exclaimed.

“Not like you!” Brian laughed, turning the gun on me. Of course I flinched before he even released the plunger, bouncing a dart harmlessly off my shoulder.

“Yeah, well you flinch too!” I cried, ripping the gun from his hands and firing off three wild shots at him while I dashed to the other side of the room.

“Hey James, ever heard of a game called suicide?” he asked, pulling another nerf gun from the big tub in the corner.

“No, what’s that?”

“You stand still against the wall, and I shoot you. If you don’t flinch, you win. But if you do, I win. Then we switch.”

“You can’t make me flinch!” I yelled defiantly, not believing it for a second. How could you not flinch when somebody was shooting at you? 

“Prove it! Stand against that wall,” he motioned. “One shot, no flinching, then we switch places.”

I put on my best imitation of a brave face, which was probably more of a scowl, and stood spread eagle with my back against the wood paneling of the basement wall. Brian stood halfway across the room, and dragged his toe through the carpet to mark a line to stand behind.

“You ready?” he asked, pulling the spring loaded handle back to cock the gun.

“Do your worst, villain!”

“No flinching!” he said, and pointed the gun at me. He pulled the trigger.

After building up the anticipation, and knowing what was going to happen, the loud pop of the gun startled me. And I flinched, of course. Even before the dart bounced off my chest.

“Hah! You flinched! I win!”

I scowled at him. “Think you’re better? My turn!” I stuck my hand out for the gun and traded places with him. I loaded another dart in the barrel, and pulled back on the orange handle. It was stiffer than I expected, and I struggled with it a little, which was frustrating, because Brian hadn’t seemed to have any problem with it. He must have been stronger than I was. With a grunt of effort, though, I got it, and once Brian was standing spread eagle in front of the wall just as I had, I raised the gun at him, finger on the trigger. A red light skittered across his shirt, surprising me.

“Whoa, it has a laser?” I asked, turning the gun around and squinting at the barrel to try and find the light.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool? I just got it,” he said, stepping closer and pointing, “It’s right there. It turns on when you start pulling the trigger.” I looked where he pointed and found the opening above the barrel where the light came out. I’d assumed the big tube-shaped thing on top just looked fancy.

“That’s so cool,” I marvelled, swinging the gun around with my finger on the trigger, and watching the red light race around the room. The light wasn’t as bright as it seemed in all the commercials, but it was way cooler than any of my nerf guns, and it was probably super accurate, too.

“C’mon, you gonna shoot me?” Brian taunted, arms out, the very picture of confidence. I nodded, found the line in the carpet, and pointed the red light at his chest.

“No flinching!” I yelled just as he had, and pulled the trigger. It was even louder up close, and I was surprised by the kick back, so instead of his chest, the dart sailed toward his face. He tried to resist the urge, but couldn’t stop himself from turning his head so that the dart snapped him in the ear.

“Ow!” he said reflexively, even though we both knew it didn’t actually hurt that much.

“See? I win too,” I said proudly.

“Fine,” he said, rubbing his ear, “Round Two. But we gotta make it harder.”

“Harder? How?”

“You have to take your clothes off, and close your eyes.”

“No way! I can’t do that! Of course I’ll flinch!”

“What, are you wimping out on me James? Wimpy James!”

“Hey! I’m not a wimp! I can do it.” I would not be out-braved by my older, cooler friend. “But I get to shoot you too!”

“Fine,” he said. “Fair’s fair. C’mon, take your clothes off.”

“You too,” I challenged, because I wasn’t going to be the only one standing around embarrassed. He agreed, and we both stripped out of our shirts and shorts.

“Undies too,” he added, looking at me with an evil grin.

“Fine,” I said, “But you first.”

“Same time,” he bartered, and hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of his spiderman briefs. I grudgingly nodded, and got ready. “Ready… Go,” he said enthusiastically, and pulled his briefs down. I hesitated half a second until I was actually sure he was doing it before I followed suit, dropping my Red Ranger Power Rangers underwear to the carpet.

“Okay,” he said, loading another dart. “Stand on the wall. I’ll take three shots this time, then you can shoot me three times.”

Defiantly, I took up the position, with my back pressed against the cold wood paneling, arms straight out at my sides and legs spread apart.

“Close your eyes,” he said, and pointed the gun.

I screwed my eyes shut and turned my head, holding my whole body tight trying not to flinch. This time he didn’t yell, just pulled the trigger with a loud pop. I almost managed to hold myself still, but when the cold dart smacked into my belly with a slight sting, I twitched involuntarily.

“Better,” he said “but you still flinched. Keep your eyes closed.”

“Fine,” I groaned, mad at myself. I could hear him loading another dart. I kept my eyes tightly closed, and my head turned away, still holding my arms and legs out in a defiant X.

This time the pop of the gun did startle me, and my arms were already halfway retracted when the dart hit my leg and I forced myself to stop. I opened my eyes and glared at him again, trying somehow to blame him for my reaction, while he loaded his third dart.

“Last one,” he said, pointing the gun again. “Close your eyes.”

I did, and resumed my tense starfish pose, pushing the bare skin of my back and butt against the wall in a determined effort to hold still.

I probably would have, too. I didn’t flinch at the sound of the gun, and I was ready for the slap of the dart against my chest or belly. But no amount of willpower could have stopped me from yelping in surprise and dropping to my knees when the rubber tipped projectile landed right on my penis.

Brian burst out laughing, and I followed suit.

“My privates!” I whisper-yelled at him. “You shot my pee-pee off!”

“Well you deserved it,” he said in his impression of a serious tone, “for having such a weird looking weiner.”

“Hey!” I said, a little offended. He probably didn’t know, but I was actually a little self conscious about it. “It’s not weird looking, I just have extra skin!” I pulled my foreskin back to demonstrate. “See? Now it looks just like yours.”

“Whoa,” he said, his eyes going big, “That’s neat, you have a mighty morphin’ weiner!”

“Yeah,” I grinned, imagining that maybe now he was slightly envious of me, “and now it’s MY turn to shoot YOUR weiner off! C’mon, gimme the gun you villain!”

Reluctantly, he handed over the plastic weapon. As I loaded in another dart, he stood against the wall with his hands over his crotch.

“Hey, no fair! Hands up! Stick ‘em up!” It was his turn to scowl, but he complied, and squeezed his eyes shut, scrunching his whole face up. After grunting to get the gun cocked again, I took aim straight at the area he’d been trying to protect. He was stiff, pointing straight at me, which presented a difficult target. The red laser dot bobbed erratically over his crotch, and I pulled the trigger.

The dart sailed low, and the suction cup tip stuck to the wall briefly a couple inches below my target before dropping to the floor.

“Hah! You missed!” he cheered, and jumped with excitement.

“You got lucky,” I warned, grabbing another dart off the floor and shoving it in the barrel. Smiling, he raised his hands again, and I hauled on the orange handle until it clicked. Maybe if the laser was on top of the gun, I needed to point the light a little above where I actually wanted to hit him.

This shot went high and to the right, hitting him in the hip. He did flinch a bit, but I wasn’t satisfied, having missed my target again. Stupid laser was supposed to make it easier, not harder.

“One more,” I said, and loaded and readied another dart. Again, he screwed his eyes closed and spread his arms and legs out. Quietly, so he wouldn’t hear, I tiptoed a few steps closer to where I couldn’t miss, and took aim. I pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a yelp. We both burst out laughing as he covered himself and danced to the side. “Bullseye!”

“Cheater!” he accused, still laughing.

“Fair’s fair,” I retorted. “You shot me, I shot you.” He grabbed up another gun and our laughter devolved into a naked nerf war around his basement, both of us trying desperately to shoot each other in the bullseye, until his mom called down from the top of the stairs that it was time for me to leave. We frantically got back into our clothes, still giggling and catching our breath.

* * *

Over the next weeks of the summer our antics continued. On weeks when he wasn’t visiting his dad, sometimes Brian’s older half-brother Michael would teach us how to do backflips on the trampoline, or show us how to tie water balloons easier, so that we could fill them extra full. Sometimes he’d even let us play on his Super Nintendo in his room. My favorite was playing Mortal Kombat II, because I knew my mom would have never let me play it if she knew, even though Brian’s mom didn’t seem to care. I don’t think I ever won, though, and told myself that it was just because they were both older than me, and had plenty of practice, and it didn’t mean I was bad at videogames or anything. Still, I wished I had a gaming console, if nothing else so I could practice and maybe win sometime. It didn’t seem fair that my mom was so mean, and wouldn’t let me have a Nintendo or play any of the fun games

When Michael wasn’t around or didn’t want to hang out with us, we found plenty of mischief on our own with tree climbing, water balloon fights, trampoline bouncing, water balloon fights while trampoline bouncing, more nerf gun fights, and even a couple trampoline nerf gun fights. And whenever we thought we could get away with it, we did it all naked. Obviously everything was always more fun when we were naked. Kids love being naked, and knowing you’d get in trouble if your parents caught you only makes it more fun. And that’s probably why he enjoyed it, but that was only part of it for me. To me when we were naked, he wasn’t the older boy who’d already finished kindergarten, had all the coolest toys, watched all the grownup movies, and got to do whatever he wanted. No, when we were naked he was my friend and my equal, another boy who enjoyed finding mischief when our parents weren’t looking, and we had lots of fun together.


	2. Starting School

I turned five years old two weeks before school started. I was so excited, I finally got to go to school. I’d been looking forward to kindergarten for over a year by that point. Big kids went to school where they learned how to read, and got to have fun playing together on the playground. I wanted to be a big kid. I wanted to learn how to read. And I wanted friends to play on the playground with.

I’d been looking forward to it so much for so long, that at one point my mom had gotten exasperated with me constantly asking when I could go to school, and had told me “Not until you turn five. You have to be patient, honey. Once you turn five, then you’ll be old enough to go to school, okay?”

So I sat down on the rug next to the sliding glass door to our backyard and waited, staring out the window. Waited patiently until I turned five. I think I waited like that for at least twenty minutes before I gave up, but I remembered what she’d told me and I waited like that on the rug in front of the door at least two more times over the following weeks. Waited patiently until I was old enough to go to school.

I don’t remember my first day of school, really. But I’m quite certain I wasn’t one of those kids who cried their eyes out when their parents dropped them off. I was so excited, I imagine I was probably a nightmare, bouncing off the walls with energy and enthusiasm.

I do remember that I was disappointed when I found out that we wouldn’t be learning how to read right away. Apparently we had to learn our letters first. One at a time, one letter per week, each week’s new letter introduced in a short animated video on an old film projector. 

Numbers too - we had to learn how to count without our fingers, as high as we could go. Every now and then, a teacher’s aid would come to class and take students one by one into a small, dimly lit room next door - barely more than a closet, really - and quiz us on our letters and numbers. I proudly demonstrated on multiple occasions that I could count to fifty without stopping, and got furious with her when she insisted that I somehow skipped seventeen, or sometimes twenty seven. Why was she always so mean? Of course I wasn’t skipping numbers, I wasn’t _stupid_.

Despite my disappointment and justified frustration, I loved being in school. Only a month after school started, Brian moved to a different neighborhood, so we only saw each other sometimes at recess, and he usually ignored me. It wouldn’t be cool for him to be friends with a younger kid, I assumed. But I didn’t mind, because suddenly I had lots of new friends to play with in my class. It turned out that Kyle lived on the street behind me, Andy lived two streets over, and Greg’s mom worked with my dad. Oliver and Geoff lived in the neighborhood, too, and we all played together in class, at recess, and sometimes after school or on the weekends, too.

Even though I had new friends I could hang out with, I still sometimes felt a little bit like an outsider. Except for Mandy, who’s birthday was a few days after mine, I was the youngest kid in the class. Most of the time I didn’t mind, it meant I was always around kids half a year to a year older than me, and nobody treated me any different. It meant I was always punching above my weight, at least a little bit.

There were definitely some downsides though. Being the youngest, I was also one of the smallest, so even though I was active and moderately athletic, the other boys were always better at sports and PE. Stronger, taller, and faster, with more reach, bigger hands, and better coordination. I could never compete to be the best, and usually counted it as a win when I simply wasn’t last. A lot of times I had Tyler to thank for that, he was one of the biggest kids in the class - in every direction. In retrospect, he actually wasn’t that fat, like I thought at the time. He just wasn’t skinny and active like the rest of us. Decades later, I’d eventually come to discover that I lived in an anomalous little pocket of the United States, where we somehow held off the childhood obesity epidemic a lot longer than everywhere else. By today’s standards you’d probably be worried that half of us were malnourished.

But I digress. Suffice it to say that overall I enjoyed kindergarten, and enjoyed my new friends, but I never quite fit in - not completely. There was always a subtle, nagging feeling that I was insufficient, didn’t quite measure up.

For that reason I was never in charge. I was always a follower - a beta, if you will, in our little pack of boys. I didn’t call the shots, I just went along with whatever everybody else wanted to do. And to my disappointment, and ever increasing frustration, what everybody else wanted to do always involved being fully clothed. Looking back, I think that’s because they were all raised to be good Christian boys - gregarious, competitive, and boastful, but physically modest - and hadn’t yet grown up enough to break out of that mold. At the time, though, the perpetual presence of clothes and absence of rule-breaking mischief was confusing, and made me wonder if maybe I was somehow weird or bad for wanting more of that kind of fun.

* * *

I graduated kindergarten knowing the whole alphabet, and able to count all the way to one hundred without skipping any numbers. We even started learning the basics of reading, stringing letters together into simple words, like “cat” and “dog”. I’m sure I learned a great deal more than just that, but I can’t for the life of me remember what any of it was.

With several new friends who lived nearby, that summer was a blast, and we spent a lot of time swimming at the neighborhood pool, biking between each other's houses, and having endless water gun fights (swim trunks were appropriately modest, of course). When the summer ended, though, I was eager to start first grade. Finally, we were really going to learn how to read! And we'd start writing, too. We didn't all have the same teacher again, there were three teachers in each grade, and they shuffled the students in each class every year. But that was okay, we still got to see each other at lunch and at recess, and I figured I could make new friends, too, with some of the boys I hadn't been in kindergarten with. 

Unfortunately, as the school year progressed, I gradually became more and more dismayed. First, reading and writing were significantly harder than I'd expected, and it seemed like I wasn't picking them up nearly as fast as some of my classmates. I knew all the letters, and I knew all the words, but half the time the letters and the words didn't match in any logical way. Why in the world was there a "u" in the middle of "aunt" when it'd make more sense to write "ant"? And when we were supposed to describe the illustrated picnic scene on the projector using two full sentences, I knew I needed a hard "a" sound, which meant I needed to put an "e" after the "b", but apparently "picknick tabel" was completely wrong, and I just didn't understand why. Moreover, it almost felt like Mrs. Parker was disappointed in me, like I wasn’t living up to her expectations, and she thought I should be able to do better. But Mandy, who'd been in front of me in line to have Mrs. Parker check her work, was warmly praised for her spelling, along with her very neat handwriting.

Meanwhile, Justin and Travis, a few places behind me in line, were sternly scolded for being loud and roughhousing while they waited.

It was at that moment, as Mrs. Parker was reprimanding Justin and Travis, that I realized it, and it hit me like a soccer ball to the face. Boys and girls don’t just _look_ different. They also _act_ different, and - most importantly - they’re _treated_ different.

As an adult this is obvious, of course. But for a six year old who knew nothing about gender discrimination, and who’d never had an open conversation with anyone about gender roles and stereotypes, this was an earth-shattering revelation. _Adults don’t treat boys and girls the same way._ This strange new concept completely changed how I saw the world. How adults interact with children. How children interact with each other. How students are taught, praised, and punished. What actions and character traits are valued or discouraged by teachers, parents, and even strangers.

Once I started looking for those differences, they were obvious, and they were everywhere. It wasn’t just Mrs. Parker, it was everybody. Miss Waterman, the music teacher, always smiled when she was talking to one of the girls. She only sometimes smiled when she was talking to me, and a lot of times she actually frowned when she addressed some of the other boys, especially when they weren’t sitting still. It seemed to me that Mrs. Linscombe, the library lady, didn’t like it when I asked her questions, but she always looked happy to answer questions from a girl. In art class Mr. Cane at least smiled and laughed along with everybody and rarely got mad or had to yell, but even so it always seemed like he had more kind words of approval or encouragement for the girls.

In fact, I can only remember one clear exception to this new concept of gender disparity. Mr. Gomez was our P.E. teacher, and a burly bear of a man. He didn’t care whether you were a boy or a girl, whether you were fat or skinny, tall or short, coordinated or clumsy. As far as he was concerned as long as you were trying hard you were doing a great job, and he put a lot of effort and attention into making sure that everybody was having fun. That’s perhaps the biggest reason why his death hit me surprisingly hard when I was in fifth grade. He didn’t come back to work after Spring Break, and they found his body at home, lying in bed. Apparently he’d simply had a heart attack, and died in his sleep.

I’m getting off track again. You’ll forgive me, I hope. Left to my own devices, my thoughts rarely travel in a straight line.

Like I said, nobody had ever had an open or frank conversation with me about gender roles and gender stereotypes, so I was learning through observation, compiling my own evidence, doing my own analyses, and here are some of the conclusions I came to.

First, adults like kids who are quiet. This is inherently obvious in any restaurant or supermarket. Quiet kids get smiles and waves, or at worst are simply ignored by strangers. But kids who are loud, energetic, fidgety, or in the way immediately earn a frown from everybody nearby. And in my observations, it was rarely a girl who earned those frowns.

Second, adults like kids who follow the rules. And this made sense of course, because adults are the ones who make the rules. But whenever somebody got in trouble, it was nearly always a boy who got caught breaking the rules.

Third, adults - and especially teachers - like kids who are smart and quick learners. This perhaps couldn’t be measured directly, but was easy enough to discern. After all, praise is given for good work and correct answers, and all the girls seemed to get quite a bit of praise. But when boys were called on to answer questions, more often than not the response was a curt “nope,” or “wrong,” or “anybody else?”

Perhaps you can see the logical terminus of these observations and conclusions, and how all of this started causing me a fair bit of distress. Ultimately, girls were Good, and boys were Bad, and nearly everything I saw seemed to reinforce that principle.

On the one hand, I wanted positive feedback, and approval from adults - to be told I was smart, doing a good job, that I was a good kid. And I didn’t like getting in trouble. Some kids can get in trouble and be scolded, and they’ll turn around and forget all about it. Not me. For me, being reprimanded or yelled at was a big deal, and something I very much tried to avoid. In this regard, I very much wanted to be more like a girl. Quiet. Smart. Compliant. Good.

On the other hand, I was a boy. I looked like a boy, I had boy parts, I enjoyed boy things like running and roughhousing and telling “dirty” jokes. Talking loudly with my friends, and gesturing wildly for emphasis. Asking lots of questions, and running over to closely examine anything that triggered my innate curiosity. Making a mess. And, of course, antics and mischief. I enjoyed being a boy. Bad.

Perhaps you can see how I started to feel pretty conflicted, and couldn’t figure out how to reconcile my desire to fit into both categories, when they seemed so diametrically opposed and incompatible.

I was confused, and I felt torn, and I was having trouble figuring out who I wanted to be.


End file.
